The Saturday Poem: Brightening, by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

A new poem by the bilingual writer

When night stirs in me it brings no dream of sea, no quench, no liquid reprieve. No. Night raises only the old roar, sets the stench of petrol spilling once more. O night.

How polite, the strangers who pushed me to choose heirlooms to send out to safety. How their smiles grew shaky when I chose only the front door key. O Home.

In night-damp grass, I stood alone. Old men watched me from the lawn; I knew their mute gaze, grown grey, grown cold, as I knew all the women on the gravel, folding whispers in their shawls.

I turned from them and saw it begin, our windows brightening, lit one by one from within: cellar, hall, kitchen. How the ballroom shone. How the library blazed.

If brigade bells sang, they sang in vain, for flames were already spilling up the drapes, erasing every hand and face from their gilt frames, swiping china and ivory knives, fox-furs and silks,

tugging precious stones from each brooch’s grip. Ghosts, those flames, racing up the stairs, sending smoke through slates, a constellation of sparks to star the dark. O paraffin splash.

O Ash. When the eaves creaked, one boy turned to me, shy grin turned jeer. O, the house of the thief is known by the trees. When I turned to leave, I could feel my back gleam.

Now, I may have no home of my own, I may be alone, but I am not meek. No. I am a stone released from old gold, shining, shining, and oh, I blaze a Sunday through every week.

Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a bilingual writer. Her first English-language collection, Clasp (Dedalus Press) won the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award. She was a recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.